Volunteer

About

• Role: Sole Designer
• Team Size: Myself
• Development Time: Ongoing
• Platform: Board Game

As an in-progress project, please keep in mind that NOTHING on this page is final. Everything is very much a work-in-progress, but if you would like to learn more, I would love to discuss what I've accomplished so far with you!

Volunteer is a worker-placement game, inspired by games such as Lords of Waterdeep and the volunteer program at Cape Henlopen State Park. To define the game's direction, I came up with a short list of design objectives:

• Strategic: Players should be given opportunities to make meaningful decisions that impact their standing in the game.
• Collaborative: Even though players are competing against each other, everything should be about helping the park.
• Diplomatic: Players should have opportunities to interact with each other, and be given reasons to both do so and not do so.

Short-term goals

Currently, the game is designed to acomodate 2-5 players. However, in a 2-player game, there is no incentive to complete tasks cooperatively, since doing so does not give you an advantage over your only opponent. The planned solution for this is to make co-op rewards asymetrical, but we'll see how that solution does in playtesting.

Long-term goals

I'm coordinating with Cape Henlopen State Park to understand what their vision for the game is, and how to make that vision align with my own. I would like this game to eventually be an official piece of Cape Henlopen merchandice, but working my way through the levels of government beurocracy necessary to do so will be challenging.